The Start of 2013 Finds More Countries Searching for Rare Earth Metal Supplies Outside China
News of further initiatives has emerged at the start of January 2013 to find secure supplies outside China of the rare earth metals that are so important to the future of clean technology and the manufacture consumer electronics.

The Start of 2013 Finds More Countries
Searching for Rare Earth Metal Supplies
Outside China
News of further initiatives has emerged at the start of January 2013 to find secure supplies
outside China of the rare earth metals that are so important to the future of clean technology
and the manufacture consumer electronics.
A Polish mining group specialising currently in copper and silver has announced plans to
purchase exploration licences in a number of countries in order to explore for rare earth
metals.
The chief executive of KGHM Polska Mied said the intention was to become a "multi metal"
company and that the group felt it had a responsibility to supply the Polish and European
markets.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has granted $120 million towards the setting up of a
new research institute the Critical Materials Institute (CMI) at the Ames Laboratory in Iowa.
The new research facility will bring together academics, researchers, four DOE national
laboratories and private sector companies to look at ways of making rare earth metal supplies
more secure domestically.
Therefore it is likely to focus on improving mining and production processes, researching
how rare minerals can be used more efficiently and on how they can be recovered and
recycled more effectively from discarded products.
Now that Lynas, one of Australia's biggest rare earth metal mining companies, has now
started processing ores at its new plant in Malaysia following a lengthy battle with
environmental activists who appealed to the Malaysian High Court to have the temporary
licence for the plant withdrawn, Australia is being predicted to become one of the world's
major suppliers. More deposits are likely to be mined in the country, which is estimated to
have more than 6% of available global supplies.
The most recent entrant into the ongoing search is the West Indian island of Jamaica, whose
Science, Technology, Energy & Mining Minister, recently announced to the country's
Parliament that Japanese researchers believed there were high concentrations of rare earths in
the residue (known as tailings) from its ailing bauxite mining industry.
The Jamaican minister reported that the researchers, from Japan's Nippon Light Metal Co.
Ltd. also believed that rare-earth elements could be efficiently extracted from the red mud, as
it is called. The country's environmental and planning agency has already approved a pilot
programme to examine the potential of a commercial operation but it has yet to be examined
by other government departments. Nippon Light Metal Co has agreed to invest $3 million in
the pilot project.
Japan was perhaps the leader in 2012 in the search for other sources of rare earth metals after
China announced reduced quotas for the global supplies of rare earths early in the year,
prompting complaints to the World Trade Organisation from Japan, the USA and the EU.
China was then supplying approximately 97% of global supplies.
This encouraged the search for other sources of the crucial minerals with potential deposits
identified in Greenland and parts of Africa, and supply and processing agreements being
signed between Japan and companies in Kazakhstan and India.
The situation has also stimulated initiatives to recycle the metals from discarded products
such as electric vehicles and consumer electronics in Japan and in the EU.
New countries join the ongoing search for alternative and secure supplies of rare earth metals
in countries outside China as 2013 begins.